Mystery

For his fifth film, Bertrand Bonello (TIRESIA) depicts a highly cinematic and atmospheric look at the final days of a turn of the century brothel when much of the Parisian sex trade was confined to grandmaisons, populated by elegant madams and vetted clientele (including French filmmakers Jacques Nolot (BEFORE I FORGET) and Xavier Beauvois (OF GODS AND MEN)). Within L’Apollonide’s walls, Bonello tracks the lives of the Madam (Noemie Lvovsky) and close to a dozen girls among them: Madeline (Alice Barnole) who is horribly disfigured by a client and becomes known as “the woman who laughs”, Clotilde (Celine Sallette) the veteran who longs to be a “respectable woman” and Pauline (Iliana Zabeth), the newcomer whose eyes are quickly opened to reality. Despite the fact that desire often mixes with danger and disease rears its ugly head, the film is filled with moments of intimacy and camaraderie amongst the girls. Using a bag of cinematic techniques which include split screen, time shifts and a modern soundtrack, Bonello has made a provocative and beautiful film on not only the world’s oldest profession but also a commentary on history as remembered by art and literature.

Based on Graham Greene’s chilling 1938 novel, BRIGHTON ROCK is the hard-boiled, visually captivating debut film of Rowan Joffe. An official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival, the film features an incredible cast of both British acting royalty and brilliant newcomers. Sam Riley (CONTROL) is the young antihero Pinkie, a cunning charmer trying to make his mark on the vicious gangland of Brighton. When a young waitress (Andrea Riseborough, who was nominated for 2 BIFAs for her breakthrough performance) stumbles on evidence that links Pinkie and his gang to a revenge killing, he draws her into a conned romance to keep
the loose end tied up. When Rose’s world-weary boss (Oscar-winner Helen Mirren) becomes suspicious of the enigmatic young man hanging around her charge, the tangled web becomes a deadly game of psychological cat-and-mouse – an atmostpheric mystery-noir that fully
captures the mood of Greene’s violent and sexually daring masterpiece.

After abandoning a promising academic career in forensic science, a self-styled Sherlock Holmes, Doug (Cris Lankenau), returns to Portland to live with his more responsible big sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn). He lands a dead-end job working in an ice factory, but soon finds an opportunity to use his passion and skill in detective work when his ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Robyn Rikoon) goes missing. Enlisting a team of ramshackle slacker-sleuths, Doug leads his team down a complex trail of clues and increasingly close to the discovering the mysterious truth about Rachel.

COLD WEATHER is a charming mystery — simultaneously a rich detective story and an affecting tale of siblings uniting after years apart. With it’s own idiosyncratic spin on familiar genre conventions, the film features the lyrical style, lush camera work and naturalistic performances that have established director Aaron Katz (DANCE PARTY USA, QUIET CITY) as a major talent to watch. COLD WEATHER premiered to critical acclaim at the 2010 SXSW, San Francisco and Los Angeles Film Festivals.

The latest film from iconoclastic independent filmmaker Gregg Araki, KABOOM is a hyper-stylized ”Twin Peaks” for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous young cast. A wild, witty and sex-drenched horror-comedy thriller, KABOOM tells the story of Smith (Thomas Dekker), an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town. KABOOM shares key touchstones of Araki’s early films, including scatological and absurd Valley-inflected dialogue, elements of campy gore and Araki’s troupe of arrestingly sexy guys and girls. With his sophisticated synthesis of various experiments in tone and cinematography, Araki has reached a new level of artistic maturity.

Two of the giants of French cinema, Claude Chabrol and Gerard Depardieu, team up for the only time for the director’s 50th and final feature film, a wry thriller about a police commissioner trying to balance professional instinct with family duty. Once again, Paul Bellamy (Depardieu) and his wife are spending their vacation at her family home in a quiet town. But just as they’re settling into their reassuringly predictable holiday routine, his perennially troubled younger brother shows up, joined by a mysterious stranger seeking Bellamy’s protection.